Part 51 (1/2)

”Why did you send for Septimus?”

”Why are you putting me through this interrogatory?” he laughed.

”You will learn soon,” said Zora. ”I want to get everything clear in my mind. I've had a great shock. I feel as if I had been beaten all over. For the first time I recognize the truth of the proverb about a woman, a dog, and a walnut tree. Why did you send for Septimus?”

Sypher leaned back in his chair, and as the ill.u.s.trated paper prevented him from seeing Zora's face, he looked reflectively at the fire.

”I've always told you that I am superst.i.tious. Septimus seems to be gifted with an unconscious sense of right in an infinitely higher degree than any man I have ever known. His dealings with Emmy showed it. His sending for you to help me showed it. He has shown it in a thousand ways. If it hadn't been for him and his influence on my mind I don't think I should have come to that decision. When I had come to it, I just wanted him. Why, I can't tell you.”

”I suppose you knew that he was in love with me?” said Zora in the same even tone.

”Yes,” said Sypher. ”That's why he married your sister.”

”Do you know why--in the depths of his heart--he sent me the tail of the little dog?”

”He knew somehow that it was right. I believe it was. I tell you I'm superst.i.tious. But in what absolute way it was right I can't imagine.”

”I can,” said Zora. ”He knew that my place was by your side. He knew that I cared for you more than for any man alive.” She paused. Then she said deliberately: ”He knew that I loved you all the time.”

Sypher plucked the ill.u.s.trated paper from her hand and cast it across the room, and, bending over the arm of his chair, seized her wrist.

”Zora, do you mean that?”

She nodded, fluttered a glance at him, and put out her free hand to claim a few moments' grace.

”I left you to look for a mission in life. I've come back and found it at the place I started from. It's a big mission, for it means being a mate to a big man. But if you will let me try, I'll do my best.”

Sypher thrust away the protecting hand.

”You can talk afterwards,” he said.

Thus did Zora come to the knowledge of things real. When the gates were opened, she walked in with a tread not wanting in magnificence. She made the great surrender, which is woman's greatest victory, very proudly, very humbly, very deliciously. She had her greatnesses.

She freed herself, flushed and trembling, throbbing with a strange happiness that caught her breath. This time she believed Nature, and laughed with her in her heart in close companions.h.i.+p. She was mere woman after all, with no mission in life but the accomplishment of her womanhood, and she gloried in the knowledge. This was exceedingly good for her. Sypher regarded her with s.h.i.+ning eyes as if she had been an immortal vesting herself in human clay for divine love of him; and this was exceedingly good for Sypher. After much hyperbole they descended to kindly commonplace.

”But I don't see now,” he cried, ”how I can ask you to marry me. I don't even know how I'm to earn my living.”

”There are Septimus's inventions. Have you lost your faith in them?”

He cried with sudden enthusiasm, as who should say, if an Immortal has faith in them, then indeed must they be divine:

”Do you believe in them now?”

”Utterly. I've grown superst.i.tious, too. Wherever we turn there is Septimus. He has raised Emmy from h.e.l.l to heaven. He has brought us two together. He is our guardian angel. He'll never fail us. Oh, Clem, thank heaven,” she exclaimed fervently, ”I've got something to believe in at last.”